


Breath of Life

by Basilintime



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M, Some descriptions of violence and gore, how it feels to meet your soulmate on a battlefield, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27271933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basilintime/pseuds/Basilintime
Summary: Yusuf meets a worthy foe.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 5
Kudos: 68





	Breath of Life

The first time his enemy had risen again, Yusuf assumed he had simply just not been dead. They were both too blood covered to tell otherwise and the man had picked himself up to his feet. He was made of tougher stuff but still everyone was mortal. Well, everyone but himself. They had fought again with the battle still raging around them. His comrades in arms were dying but so too were the enemy. 

Yusuf slipped up this time; left his side open and he felt the pain of the sword burying itself into his ribs. It was his turn to die but he wouldn’t be gone for long. Death felt like pain. A moment of it with silence reigning over whatever purgatory he was condemned to. 

And then the sound of battle rushed back in and he felt himself come back to his full strength. It was his enemy’s turn to stare in wonder as he rose from the dead. The only difference between them was that Yusuf had truly died and returned. The man who stood across from him watched without the typical fear that he saw in most people’s eyes when he defied them victory. Instead, there was a curiosity in those eyes framed by his helmet. 

The hint of sweat and mud-stained tawny hair became a forest in its full brilliance during an autumn rain when the leaves began to change with their own death as the man removed his helmet. A foolish move but one Yusuf matched to acknowledge the clear challenge. 

One of them would remain dead this time. 

It would not be him. 

The battle was dying around them in a literal sense. Soldiers laid upon the ground with their lives seeping out into the soil. Only a few small clashes remained aside from their own. Yusuf could almost swear that this man, the tawny-haired devil, made the misstep on purpose. Yusuf’s sword cut into his throat, punctured it straight through and the man smiled at him. Smiled as the blood bubbled out of his wound and he fell back as Yusuf pulled the sword clear. 

This time there was a moment of regret as he stood and watched. Waited for something he knew wouldn’t come. 

And yet, he saw the wound close and heard the gasp of life return to the poor soul that lay at his feet. This time it felt like joy to watch the man stand. He even laughed with it, a half-drunk sound that was joined with the laughter of his enemy. 

Yusuf couldn’t quite bring himself to think of him strictly in those terms now. Not now that he knew. This man was his companion now. A friend. One you still were duty sworn to kill but that was beside the point. 

He was so filled with elation at finding another like him that he didn’t react in time when his new friend made the clear lunge to begin the battle again. It was, perhaps, a little on purpose to give assurances that he was also one of those cursed and blessed beings for whom life was merely a game.

He hardly even felt it this time as life was knocked free of him like his senses. It took a little longer this time, it must have, because when he opened his eyes once again he was met with the most beautiful concerned gaze he’d ever seen. The man smiled at him almost like relief and helped Yusuf to his feet this time. Helped him rise up for battle once more in a way that felt like being welcomed into a bed chamber for more than just slumber. 

They stood close with hands clasped between their chests for a few moments, breathes shared a little too intimately, before they parted only to crash together once more. They went harder than before, a chaotic dance between them that spoke of so many things that Yusuf couldn’t even begin to process them all. The battle around them had slowed and stilled to leave only their frantic war left to ring out across the dead. 

The truly dead. 

Neither of them were giving the other an advantage this time. They knew that they were both capable. That they were both the same breed of resilience and defiance. 

Yusuf saw an opening and went for it. He barely managed to dodge a blow himself when he brought his sword upwards, caught his friend just under his armor and the blade pushed up into his chest as they both fell back. 

It would have struck the heart. 

It must have; when Yusuf looked into his friend’s eyes he found nothing there. The emptiness that spoke of death. He pushed himself off to the side as he withdrew his blade. Winced and hoped that his friend wouldn’t feel that too. He sat down next to him in the mud and shit and blood of the battlefield and waited as he fought to catch his breath. 

Waiting turned into worrying as his thoughts began to circle something terrible the longer his companion did not wake. 

_What if it was only another like them that could kill the other?_

The thought brought something that Yusuf hadn’t felt in a long time. Fear. Raw and powerful as it seemed to weigh down on him like a blanket the longer he stared at those lifeless eyes of his soul-bound companion. Gone.

Something that Yusuf had experienced over the years hit him next but it was such an overwhelming pain in his chest that he almost didn’t recognize it. Loss. He had found his friend here only to lose him because of their own foolishness. Because of the pressing demands of duty to their respective commanders. 

It was the loss of a lover that wracked between his lungs and sent his heart aching. All the things he wasn’t supposed to feel broke free in the scream that tore its way out of him. Such deep sadness that he sounded more like a wounded beast crying out the last etching remnants of its existence. 

He buried his face against his perished friend’s chest, let the blood coat it in an attempt to hide the tears he knew would be seen as the ultimate weakness if one of the others came by. He wasn’t entirely clear on how much time he sat there feeling a loss of something he knew in his mind’s eye would have been everything. 

Forget the wars and the kings and the gods. Forget them all. They had cost him lifetimes over their course but now they’d cost him even more. 

They had cost him the possibility of companionship that would reach out into the future alongside him rather than to become something left behind to be another memory of his differences. 

“Why do you cry, my friend?” A hand pressed against the back of his head, gentle for belonging to someone who had participated in such violence. 

“Because you are dead.” He could taste the blood in his mouth as he spoke. Taste it bitter on his tongue that would have once lapped it up like a dog to show his loyalty. He lifted his head to find those sea-green eyes looking at him with a hesitant look of hope. 

“But I am not dead. You have simply taken my heart so it had to learn how to beat for you before it could let me return.” His companion’s hand pressed against his cheek as he spoke. Cupped it with a tenderness that made Yusuf shudder with it. Like he was some hapless boy being looked at with an affectionate eye for the first time. 

“Then I would do best not to break it as it is now mine.” There was a smile that felt like a blessing just before Yusuf moved to press their lips together. They both bore the taste of the scene around them, earthy and full of death even as they whispered life into the only part of them that had ever suffered lasting damage. 

They kissed life back into their souls. 

“Can I know the name of my heart?” Their lips still brushed, neither wanting to break away as the question was spoken into his lungs. 

“Yusuf. And you, my life?” 

“Nicolò.”

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize as this is the first time writing these characters. It's been months since I've watched the movie and I did no real research on anything in regards to the historical aspects.  
> I just saw a post on tumblr that suddenly struck me to write about these two falling in love over the course of killing each other an entire 4-5 times.


End file.
